Photo Finish, or They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
by Matrix Refugee
Summary: Road to Perdition Not all of Maguire's assignments for his, er, sidejob involve humans...
1. Part 1of 2

+J.M.J.+

Photo Finish, or They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

By "Matrix Refugee"

Writing as Miss Holly Maguire (I wanted to post this under a penname I use on fictionpress.net, but the site won't let me!

Author's Note:

Don't ask me where this one came from…All right, all right, I'll 'fess up…The kid my mother and I babysit is plain CRAZY about horses, since her mother keeps horses (or do the horses keep her mother? Dichotomies…). So naturally, the kid is as flipped over another DreamWorks movie, _Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron_, as YT is over RtP. She has at least count 'um three tee shirts with the _Spirit_ movie logo on 'em, and she was the first kid in town to own the VHS of _Spirit_ when it came out, which she promptly inflicted on us. Now, mind you, I have nothing against _Spirit_, which I honestly think is one of the most original treatments of the "boy and his horse" story ever made. But when you've heard about horses-horses-horses-horses for the past seven years, you almost want to scream. I mean, this kid's first words were "horsy" (pronounced "hossy" since I'm New England), "pony", and "wanna ride". So…in order to relieve my pent-up annoyance with equines, I thought I'd do a different take on the usual semi-splatter-punk "Maguire on assignment…with his OTHER job" kind of RtP fic. Only there was one small problem…

Disclaimer:

I do not own _Road to Perdition_, its characters (certainly not "the Reporter"), concepts, or other indicia, which are the property of Max Allen Collins, Sam Mendes, David Self, DreamWorks, 20th Century Fox, etc. etc. etc. Oh, and I'm not related to "the Reporter", either (if he'd really existed, who'd want **_that_** creep on their family tree?! Although he's a great character to have dispose of people/critters you can't STAND ).

Dedication:

Much as I don't like horses, that doesn't bar me from dedicating this fic to Zippy Chippy, a racehorse which holds the world record for losing races…because he never finishes 'em!

Springtime in Chicago. The gutters ran with water from the melting snow and the April showers that would bring the May flowers (in the parks and flowerpots on people's windowsills at least). And it also meant the return of the horseracing season. The sports pages of the _Herald-American_ would be jammed with accounts of the horse races at Burlington Park outside the city, and just about everyone at the offices of the _Herald_ would be trading tips on which horse to bet on.

Everyone that is, except Maguire, who studiously avoided these discussions when he encountered knots of men in the hallways and on the stairs of the _Herald_ building. He certainly didn't need the extra cash the way his legitimate associates did. He already had something much dodgier to supplement his income, but that was nobody's business except his own.

But the other reporters kidded him mercilessly about it.

"Hey, Maguire," Jake McGwin, the sportswriter, called to him on the stairs one afternoon, as Maguire was heading out after delivering a day's work to the photo editor. McGwin was one of these small, dark, rat-faced guys with a skinny, spidery build, usually found in pool halls and divier places, but it was common knowledge he just looked sinister.

"Hey, what?" Maguire asked, pausing on a landing, annoyed. This had better not have anything to do with the damn ponies.

McGwin came down a few steps and joined him. "The boys 'n me got a pool going on this new hoss, Tawny Lightning. Y' wanna add a finnif?"

"Thanks, but I'll take a raincheck, Maguire said, turning away.

McGwin caught his shoulder. "Hey, not so fast. Odds are going five to twelve on this bit of horseflesh. He's a feisty colt, a lotta life. He's showing a good deal a' promise, might make it to Belmont or the Kentucky Derby."

"Thanks for the tip, but I'll pass."

"Why? Bad times like this, y' might want the extra cash."

Maguire shrugged. "I do all right. I just got myself to support, so I don't need much." He eyed McGwin's wedding ring. "Besides, what would yer missis say if she knew what you were up to?"

McGwin smiled. "She don't notice: she plays the Irish Lotto, so she's not about to throw bricks. You can afford it better 'n I can."

"No thanks."

McGwin stepped up one step and looked him in the eye "Give me one good reason why you'd pass up an offer like this."

Maguire returned the look squarely. "I'll give you one good reason in three words: I hate horses." Saying that, he continued downstairs.

"Well, y' might find one good reason to like 'em when y' get yer payback," McGwin called after him. Maguire pretended not to hear this and kept walking quickly for the lobby.

By the time he reached the street, the spring rain had stopped falling and the clouds had started to break overhead, turning the puddles in the potholes and gutters to patches of blue and white. He was in such a hurry to put as much distance between himself and the office, that he hardly noticed the innocent-looking group of kids hanging about one particularly large puddle. Or, at least he noticed them when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw them jump feet first, as one boy, into the puddle feet first. A cascade of water broke over Maguire, drenching him and his camera case, as the kids yelled "Splash 'um!"

The kids clearly expected him to get steaming mad, but despite the cold fury boiling under his hat, Maguire turned to the kids with a disarming smile. The kids giggled, but he detected something nervous in their tone.

He shrugged. "I needed a bath any way," he said, only half nonchalant and went away.

_Damn kids,_ he thought, wondering if his camera case had stood up to the assault. At least the air had warmed, so he wouldn't get chilled on the walk home.

First thing when he got in the door of his apartment, he dried off the outside of his case and opened it. Thank God it hadn't sprung a leak or those kids would have had hell to pay.

No sense wasting time and energy grumbling over things that hadn't happened; save that for when it actually happened, he thought, going for a dry shirt. Then the phone started ringing. Half into his second shirt of the day, he went to answer the phone.

"Harlen Maguire."

"This is Frank Nitti," said the voice on the other end of the line. "Campanini has a job for you. I better warn you: it's a rather unusual one."

Maguire slid his free arm into the other sleeve. "Why, what's the deal?"

"First tell me this: do you follow horseracing at all?"

"'Fraid not, except what I overhear at the office." What was this with horseracing all of a sudden?

"Are you familiar at all with a horse called Tawny Lightning?"

"Name rings a bell…yeah, one of the sportswriters was gabbing about it, something about how this pony won every race this season.

"And that's the problem. Campanini's horse Flying Cap is racing against Tawny Lightning this Saturday. So far, Tawny Lightning has beaten Flying Cap at every single race. So Campanini, amongst others who have much less to lose, has started to wonder if there's something…devious going on."

"I think I know where you're going on this, and I'm not sure if I'm really the guy for this job," Maguire said, trying to ignore the dryness encroaching on the back of his tongue.

"Why? You're not afraid of getting caught, are you? You're a master at covering your tracks. You have the perfect cover: You could get into the stable as a photographer for one of the papers."

The dryness in Maguire's throat had spread well into his mouth. He held the receiver away from his face, breathing hard, slow, counting to ten and ignoring the prickling on the back of his neck and the small of his back.

"Maguire, you still there?"

"Yeah, it's just…I don't know if I can take this one."

"Why, you hiding a soft spot under your stony-faced exterior?"

"No." He paused. "I'm afraid of horses."

"Say that again?"

"I said, I'm afraid of horses…I got trampled by one when I was a kid. I can't hardly go near one of the iron-shod beasts without breaking out in a cold sweat."

"Well, in that case, look at it this way: after you've finished, there'll be one less of the thick-skulled creatures in this world," Nitti said, with something bordering on reassurance.

"Yeah, but trying to get to that point, that's the hard part, that gives me the cold creeps. My hand would be shaking too hard for me to shoot straight. I mean, they shoot horses, don't they?"

"Only if they break a leg, and I doubt you want to try that kind of stunt. Perhaps you could find a less dramatic way to dispose of the animal. With your photo lab, you must have something poisonous enough to slip into the water bucket without too much trouble. Who'd suspect a newspaperman?"

"That's just the point, I'm not a sports photographer, that line belongs to a kid named Cunningham."

"In that case, perhaps you could trade places with him for an evening. It's true, isn't it that you publish human interest shots once in a while?"

"Yeah, it's true, but I'm smart enough to use a John Doe for those," he admitted.

"You have till tomorrow evening to figure out what you're going to use on the beast, you worry about that. I think I know someone who could handle this Cunningham, get him out of your way. The horse gets shipped in to the stables at Burlington Park tomorrow morning first thing, and the race is Saturday, which leaves you thirty-six hours to get your act together."

"I'll see what I can do," Maguire said

"Do you have any idea what the horse looks like?"

Maguire reached for a pad of paper on the telephone table, pulled the pad toward him, found a pencil and licked the point. "No, unless someone points out something distinctive about a particular nag, all horses look alike to me: big."

"It's a tawny stallion, black mane and tail. Owner is Fleming Hauser, big guy, ruddy-faced, dishwater blonde hair. He'd be proud to show off his nag for you."

"Play on his vanity a little, eh?" Maguire said, jotting down the information. Below it, he doodled a stick-figure horse lying on its back, legs sticking up stiffly.

"Exactly," Nitti said. "There's three-fifty for you if the horse ends up unfit to race on Saturday, five-hundred if the horse never races again."

"That's a little low. There's an element of risk."

"What are you getting at?"

The prickling on the back of his neck and the small of his back felt like someone pounding his skin with a rubber mallet stuck full of needles. "I could be injured."

"Any one of the jobs I've had you do were just as risky."

"It's not quite the same: I'll be dealing with an animal about ten times my weight."

"All right, I'll make it an even seven hundred, but not a penny higher."

"Fair enough."

"Don't tell me you'll be photographing the end result."

"I won't be around for that. It would draw too much attention."

"Good. I don't want you to do anything to compromise this at all. Hauser loves that horse like his own flesh and blood. Some say he loves it better. And if he caught you slinking around, there'd be hell to pay for us all."

Maguire added an X for an eye to the doodle. "Don't worry. A shot like that wouldn't sell."

A pause. "It wouldn't?"

"No. I made a similar blunder when I was still green at the tabloid trade. The star of a troupe of trained poodles was found dead, poisoned or something. I got a shot of it, but none of the rags would buy it. People, especially the ones who 're loopy over animals, don't want to hear about one of the little darlings getting killed. They'd rather see shots of one of the fellow man done in. Why? Because every one of us, even the so-called best of us, has someone they'd secretly like to see croak off, whether they're aware of it or not."

"Interesting philosophy, but I'm afraid I have to cut this conversation short."

"Understood. I'd be the first to say I talk too much."

Once they exchanged goodbyes, and Maguire had hung up the phone, he stared at the note on his pad. Now _what_ did I just get myself into now…?

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. Part 2 of2

+J.M.J.+

Photo Finish, or They Shoot Horses, Don't They?

By Miss Holly Maguire

Disclaimer:

See Part 1

By the following morning, he had it all figured out. He went to the Public Library to research poisoning rodents. Not that a horse was a big rat with the added feature of hooves, but he decided it would be a little too obvious if he smuggled a bottle of developing chemicals into the box stall, but it would look less suspicious if the stable grooms found the horse full of strychnine. His father had used that to kill the rats in the barn back home, though he'd gotten careless with it and swallowed some of it by a fortunate or unfortunate mistake, however you looked at it. The stable master at Burlington probably used it himself. Later that evening, he went to a hardware store out on the edge of town, closer to the small farms in the outlying areas, where they were more likely to stock it.

Of course the clerk found it a little odd that a well-dressed city slicker was buying rat bane, and a large amount of it at that, but Maguire fed him a line about having rats as big as horses in his basement.

Next day about noon, he turned in the morning's work: a botched burglary with a strapping Italian dame lambasting a skinny kid in his late 'teens, a safe that looked like a wrecking ball had hit it, police examining a panel cut out of the back door of a bank that had been robbed in the night.

"Hey, Maguire!" McGwin called out as they passed in the hallway.

For once he almost welcomed that grating yodel. "Hey, what?" he replied, pausing to let the shorter guy catch up.

"You got any idea where Cunningham got to?" McGwin asked.

"No. Last time I saw him was yesterday about noon when I bumped into him on my way out of Buchner's office. Why?"

"He didn't show up here this morning, and he ain't picking up his phone."

"Maybe he's got company and he couldn't leave," Maguire said with a grin he meant to be suggestive.

McGwin smirked. "Yeah, sounds about right, you bachelors." Relaxing his thin face, he added, "I need a photographer, though I doubt you'd be interested or willing to ride shotgun with me this evening."

"Why not? Spell it out, I might be able to fit it into the schedule."

McGwin shook his head, grinning almost fiendishly. "Nah, you wouldn't want it."

"C'mon, Jake, how can I know that if I don't know what it is."

"All right, Styne wants me to do a piece on Tawny Lightning for tomorrow's headline and he wants pictures. I haven't found anyone else to cover."

Maguire shrugged one shoulder, ignoring the needling in the back of his neck. "I could do it."

"Yeah, but don'tcha hate horses?"

"That doesn't mean I won't photograph 'em. Presses gotta keep rolling. What's an article about the stellar young pony everyone wants to bet on if there's no photo to go with it?"

McGwin wagged a finger at Maguire. "If I didn't know you better, Mac, I'd think you wanted to help me on this."

"Someone's gotta do it."

"All right, I'm heading out to Burlington about five this afternoon. Meetcha here?"

"I'll be here with bells on," Maguire said, mock enthusiastic.

"Oh, you don't have to be that depressed over it," McGwin retorted.  
  


Maguire plotted his course of action as he walked home. Get a moment alone with the horse. Slip the bottle into the water bucket, snap a few shots, then walk away. He realized emptying the bottle would be too time-consuming and too noisy. But how to get the cork out of the bottle? Drill a hole in the cork and stick a broom-straw into it to stopper it? But how to keep the bottle from floating as it emptied? Tie a rock to the bottle. How to keep the rock from breaking the bottle? Wrap the rock in cotton batting. He tried hiding the bottle in the outer pocket of his topcoat, but the neck stuck out. He'd have to hide it in an inner pocket, which would be more awkward, but he'd manage somehow. Easy as falling off a log…or a horse.

"Y' don't know how grateful I am that you agreed to this," McGwin said, as they drove out to Burlington Park.

"Don't mention it," Maguire said, watching the scenery rushing by the window, the storefronts and buildings giving way to trees and fields.

"So, y' gonna tell me?" McGwin asked.

 Maguire looked at McGwin. "Tell you what?"

"Tell me how you got trampled by a horse."

Maguire shrugged, feeling the bottle in his jacket pocket against his hip. "It's nothing much to tell. I grew up on a farm. Accidents like that happen."

McGwin darted a teasingly incredulous eye from the road to Maguire. "You grew up on a farm? _You_ grew up on a farm?!"

"I did."

"From the look of you, I find that hard to believe. I mean, you're so scrawny, y' just don' look like the corn-fed mid-west farm lad."

"Well, when you're one of the younger ones in a family of eleven kids and most of the corn goes to feeding the cows, there's not much left to go around," Maguire said. The back of his neck and the small of his back throbbed. He was not going to think about that day…His older brother Seamus getting into an argument with his father; Shay saddling up his horse and riding out in a huff; his father rushing after Shay, pulling him down from the saddle, frightening the horse so that it bolted down the alley between the barn and the henhouse, where young Harley had been gathering eggs. He dimly remembered the pounding hooves behind him, but everything went dark.

Supposedly, he'd been kicked into the side of the barn wall, face first after the horse stepped on the small of his back and the back of his neck. Miraculously, he'd had no broken bones, only some nasty bruises and bangs. But he dimly remembered that night, well after dark, when he awoke lying on his parents' bed, bandaged and stiff, hearing his parents' voices, Ma's alto squeak and Pa's nasally baritone. "If you hadn't pulled Shay down and spooked that horse"—"If the blatherin' whelp hadn't been near the barn in the first playce, if he'd nawt been born a t'all, if ye'd nawt been mollockin' about wit' thaht Inglish peddlar—"

"Y' know what Miss Kittridge, Styne's secretary calls y'?" McGwin's voice cut through the painful images.

"What?" Maguire asked, welcoming anything to get him back to the present.

"The skeleton dude," McGwin said, laughing. "She got more criminal, though. She asks me, did you ever find a photographer to cover for Cunningham? So I said, yeah, I got Maguire from the crime pages. And she says 'Don't tell me that death's head agreed to help!'"

Maguire laughed out loud. "The death's head. That's rich! She clearly doesn't know the half of it, never got a gander at my tabloid stuff."

"Yeah, she only reads the women's rags."

They pulled up to the back gates of Burlington Park. A watchman flagged them down. McGwin rolled down the window and showed him their press passes.

"Well, it's the rat and…hmm, where's the bear?" the watchman asked, eying Maguire.

"The bear never showed up," McGwin said.

The watchman opened the gates and waved them through.

"The rat and the bear?" Maguire asked. McGwin and his usual partner had clearly been here before.

"Yeah, that's what they call Cunningham and me," McGwin explained, turning the car down the road to the stables beyond the track.

As soon as McGwin parked the car and opened his door, the smell hit Maguire's nostrils: horses, a combination of hay, sweat and manure, one of the smells he'd moved to the city to escape. Breathing through his mouth, Maguire climbed out of the passenger seat and followed McGwin into the stable.

They walked into a jam of people in the corridor between the rows of stalls: stable grooms, jockeys, trainers, other newspapermen and photographers.

"Hoy there, McGwin!" boomed a big man in a tweed jacket, looking over the crowd and beckoning them.

"Comin' through, Hauser!" McGwin called back, trying to part the crowd. Maguire got ahead of him, using his camera case to help cut the crowd.

"So where's yer usual partner in crime?" Hauser asked when the two of them got up to where he stood against the door of a loose box.

"Cunningham pulled a disappearing act," McGwin explained, pointing a thumb at Maguire, who set his camera case down against a wall and started digging out the middle-sized Kodak, easier to maneuver than the Speed-Graphic and the tripod, in case he had to make any sudden exits. "So I got a second string from the crime pages."

"Bet this is a welcome relief for yah, boy," Hauser said, grinning, showing large, horselike teeth

"Not for our Mr. Maguire: a horse used 'um for a doormat when he was a kid," McGwin said, returning the smile. 

"Ah, revealing all my dark secrets, eh?" Maguire twitted, loading a roll of film into the camera.

"Maybe y' better keep well back from m' nag, boy," Hauser warned. "He's lively one."

Maguire set about cranking film into the Kodak. "I'll manage. I can handle it," he said, trying to sound nonchalant.

While McGwin asked Hauser a few questions, the larger man opened the door to the box stall and let them enter.

A lion-colored horse with a black mane and tail stood at the far end of the stall, tethered to a ring in the wall. It lifted its muzzle from the oat bucket at its feet and whickered at Hauser, who reached out and stroked its nose with a wide, meaty hand.

"He's th' best I run across in years, cross between a mustang and a thoroughbred…" Hauser continued rambling on about bloodlines and training. McGwin jotted this all down. Maguire got a shot of Hauser stroking the horse's forelock.

"Could I get a shot of the horse alone?" Maguire asked. "It would make a splendid shot, show the beauty of him."

McGwin and Hauser exchanged incredulous looks. "Y' sure y' wanna try that, boy?" Hauser asked.

"I'll manage," Maguire said. "I'll send you a reprint of the shot."

"Let him: he's a bloody artist, barring his usual subject matter," McGwin said.

Hauser regarded Maguire with incredulity knotting his bushy brows. "All right, but if you have trouble, just holler." He stepped out, leading McGwin, leaving the "artist" alone with his model.

The horse looked at Maguire, ears pointing forward, curious. It snuffed at him as he stepped back toward a corner opposite, against the water bucket.

Maguire knelt, focused the camera on the horse and snapped the shot.

The horse turned its head toward him, letting out a rumble that didn't sound too friendly. He grew aware of the sweat on the back of his neck. The beast could probably smell it. He got another shot He glanced up: the horse's ears had gone back. Not a good sign.

Maguire pocketed the Kodak, removed the broom straw from the cork, and slid the bottle out of his jacket. "Nice, horse. Nice feller," he said, backing toward the water bucket. "Easy there now, easy." The horse snorted, its eyes rolling forward.

He had just slid the bottle into the bucket, talking to the horse to cover the _plip_ as it dropped in, when the horse lunged at him with a growl, blocking the stall door.

Maguire scrabbled up the wall and over the top. He dropped over, landing on Hauser. The horse reared up, flailing its forefeet and letting out a shrill whinny.

"Yeh shouldn't a' gawn in there, yah damn fool," Hauser said, helping Maguire up off the floor and brushing straw off him. "He knew yeh was afraid."

"You okay?" McGwin said as a couple stableboys pushed past, into the stall to subdue the animal.

"Yeah, at least I saw it coming this time," Maguire said, checking to see if his camera had survived. By some miracle, it, like him, was intact.

"Yeh get yer pictures, boy?" Hauser asked.

"I got everything we'll need," Maguire said.

Next morning, he hadn't heard from Nitti yet, but he found out what had become of Cunningham. He'd been out pounding the pavement when he came upon a crowd gathered around the door of the rooming house where Cunningham lived. When he got inside, he found a perfect photo opportunity: the police trying to figure out how to get a hogtied Cunningham out of a very narrow closet someone had stuffed him into, leaving him wedged in there, unable to move, but yelping hoarsely around the gag in his mouth. When Cunningham realized just who was photographing him, he started screaming something that sounded like "You think it's funny, Maguire?!" but which came out like "Moo vmm miff muffny?"

It was probably the work of the group of air-headed rowdies known as the "Leppurd Gang" who hung around Wells Street and were notorious for juvenile things like smushing lemon meringue pies in people's faces and sliding down banisters and occasionally throwing Irish confetti through people's open windows. It looked like their work, but he found it hard to believe that Nitti would have those batbrains on the payroll. 

On the stairs of the _Herald_, he met a very gray-faced McGwin coming down, his eyes staring, a little glazed.

"Yer dog die, McGwin?" Maguire asked, ironic.

McGwin glanced at him. "Close," he said. "Tawny Lightning. They found him poisoned. Someone called in from Burlington Park. They had to put him down."

"Well, he won't be charging me or anyone else any more," Maguire said. "There'll be other ponies, they come and go."

"Don't mention it," McGwin said, stepping away.

"Hey, a friend of mine says there's another up and coming hoss racing today, what's the name…Flying Cap. Y' might want to look into betting on 'um."

McGwin looked at him oddly. "Now look who's giving racing tips. Were you just bulling me when you said you're afraid of horses?"

"I only heard the info, just passing it along."

Out of respect for the bereaved, Maguire found a good frame for the print of the portrait shot he'd taken and delivered it up to Hauser's room at the guesthouse at the stable. Since Hauser wasn't taking guests, he left it with the landlady. Probably just as well…

On the way out, he'd wondered if he'd spot a covered van for the fertilizer plant, but he realized this wouldn't be a likely sight. Someone like that would have a funeral for the damned pony. And there were some _people_ who didn't get a decent funeral, for God's sake!

When he got back to his flat, he found a copy of the evening edition of the _Herald_ jammed under the door, folded back to the sports pages. "Tawny Lightning Poisoned on Eve of Race". A note in McGwin's handwriting scribbled on the margin: _I bet you're happy!_

Inside the door, on the floor, lay an envelope containing seven c-notes and a scrap of paper folded around three sawbucks.

Here's a bonus for your trouble: you would have won this if you'd bet on Flying Cap today.

_Nice work for someone afraid of horses._

F. Nitti 

He decided horses weren't such a bad thing, as long as he didn't have to get within hooves' reach of 'em.

The End

Afterword:

Enjoy this while its here: This is going to be the last bit of Maguire mayhem, at least till the warmer months…although I have one in the works involving an Italian tenor. I have to get back to my "A.I." fics. I must! I must!


End file.
